I Will Follow You Into the Dark
by holadios
Summary: Fearing for her life, Cameron returns to Chase and PPTH. As they try to rebuild their relationship, Cameron realizes her assailant is someone very familiar. Though it seems unbelievable, when the evidence stacks against him, everyone must face the truth.
1. Prologue: Save Me

**Disclaimer:** Nothing you recognize is mine.

**A/N:** A few thank-yous are due before this story can begin. First, to **Pandorama**, for the premise of this story. I hope to do justice to your idea. Second, as always, to **Melissa_, _**for being the best beta an author could ask for. Committed, fast, and always willing to stay up the extra hour or so to help me choose a title. I hope we make this story amazing.

* * *

It was raining.

She had no umbrella, no hood, nothing to prevent the relentless drops from soaking her hair as she ran. As it was, the rain was the least of her problems.

She turned the corner, her breath catching in her throat. She leaned against the wall as she struggled to catch her breath. She had been running for nearly twenty blocks. Taking a cab from the bus stop might have been a smarter idea, but she hadn't had time to wait for a cab to hail down. She wished that she had thought this plan through more thoroughly, that she hadn't taken off straight from her office for the bus stop that would get her as far away as fast as possible. Her car was still parked in the garage behind the hospital where she now worked. Or, as it were, used to work; she had no intention of returning.

Going back was simply out of the question now that not even the place she worked was safe. Once or twice was merely coincidence, but this had been five times in the past three days. He didn't even work there. He had no business being at her hospital. She could understand if they had a mutual acquaintance, but she knew that wasn't the case. There was no reason for him to be there. There had been one date, just the one, and it hadn't even been that great. Now he refused to leave her alone.

The rain did not let up as she began moving again toward her destination. It hurt too much to run – she had not been practical enough to change out of the heels she had worn to work – so instead she walked at a brisk pace. Practicality had not been at the top of her list of worries as she had fled from the hospital to the nearest bus stop. None of it had been practical. It had been all about the escape.

The street was familiar and it brought back memories that were as comforting as they were painful. She had not lived on this street for very long, and she hoped the person she was going to see still lived there. She pulled her phone out of her jacket pocket and checked the battery. It was nearly dead. If he no longer lived at this address, she would have barely enough phone battery to call for a cab to a hotel. She hoped once more that he hadn't moved…

The lights were on in his living room window; that much she could tell as she approached. Someone was home, but was it the right person? She swallowed hard and brushed her soaking bangs from her face as she approached the door. She knocked once, twice, and then stepped back to wait. The door opened a moment later.

Her eyes filled with tears at the sound of his voice. He spoke her name in a tone of surprise, maybe even trepidation, but it also held notes of curiosity and concern. He stepped back to allow her to enter. She began shaking as she crossed through the doorway. She wrapped her arms around her body as she stood next to the door, suddenly aware of the fact she was dripping water all over what had once been their floor.

He seemed to have noticed this, too. Turning around, he walked away from her, down a long hallway that she knew led to a bathroom. He returned with his arms full of towels. He unfolded the largest one and draped it around her shoulders, pulling her closer to him. She made no movement to stop him as he used another towel to dry her hair. She rested her head on his neck as she felt tears begin to fall freely down her cheeks.

At some point, he must have realized that she wasn't just wet from the rain and she wasn't shaking just because it was cold. He stopped rubbing her hair to drape the second towel around her shoulders as well. She lifted her head from his chest and looked at him. He slowly brought his thumb to her face and brushed the tears away from her eyes. She closed her eyes as he touched her and he pulled her closer to him, enveloping her in a tight embrace.

They stood there for a long time, neither of them daring to break the silence. As he held her, she suddenly became aware of how pathetic she looked, with her hair in desperate need of another round of dye and her only clothing soaking wet. She dreaded the moment when he would remember whom he was embracing and what she had done to him. She feared the moment he would push her away from him and send her back out into the rain, into the street, into _his _path once more. Unconsciously, she clung to him tighter.

He took a step backward suddenly, gently prying her hands from around his neck. He kept his hands on her upper arms and studied her face. She did not drop her gaze as his eyes moved up her face to the deep roots of her hair and across to her right ear, which she knew was missing its earring. He stared at her a long time before finally speaking.

"Do you want to sit down?" he asked finally. "You look exhausted." She didn't answer, but he led her over to the couch anyway and half-pushed her down onto one of the cushions. He sat down next to her and looked at her expectantly, clearly waiting for her to break the silence next.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered. Her eyes filled with tears again. "I'm so-"

Perhaps he didn't want her to ramble because he quickly asked, "What's wrong?"

She opened her mouth to answer, but closed it just as quickly. The words literally died in the back of her throat. The enormous weight of the situation, the gravity, the improbability, pressed upon her chest so with such force it felt as though she were suffocating from the inside out. It strangled her lungs, making it impossible for her to breathe. His hands were on her shoulders in an instant, and he directed her eyes upward to meet his.

"Breathe," he instructed softly, but firmly. "Just look at me and breathe." She struggled to match her breath with his slow, even breathing. "That's it," he said, as she began calming down. She saw him rub the back of his neck, which he tended to do when the situation was stressful and he was thinking hard and fast. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "I didn't mean to scare you."

She tried to reply, but her voice box would not cooperate. She instead nodded to show her acceptance of his apology. He looked at his watched and sighed.

"It's nearly midnight," he said. "Do you want to take a shower, maybe warm up? You can put on some dry clothes if you…oh." He broke off as his eyes trailed over to the door and back to her. "You didn't bring any other clothes with you." She just looked at him; it had not been a question.

"Okay," he began again, and she knew him well enough to know he was hiding his surprise. She supposed it must be odd, her showing up soaking wet in the middle of the night with no extra clothing and unable to speak. If the situation were not so grave, she would have laughed. "Right, well, you can take a shower and I'll…I'll just lend you some things for tonight, then." She nodded, grateful for this gesture, and wondered vaguely if he had kept any of her old clothes here. She had taken almost everything with her when she'd moved out, but she supposed it was possible she'd missed a few articles by mistake.

He showed her to the bathroom as though she wouldn't remember where it was. She got the sense that he was afraid to leave her alone, unsure of what she would do if she didn't have someone to guide her. He faltered as he stood in the doorway, clearly uncertain of what he should do next. "I'll…get you another towel, all right?" Without waiting for her reply, he turned around and walked back down the hall.

She shut the door behind him and looked at herself in the mirror for the first time since the morning. Her makeup was blotchy, smeared on her face in some places. Her hair was a tangled mess; she strongly wished she had a thick brush and a hair band to pull it back with. She ran her fingers through the tangles, trying her best to comb out some of the worst knots, but it was futile. Her arm fell uselessly to her side, overcome by exhaustion. She turned around and faced the shower, but even turning on the water felt like the most strenuous task. Blindly, she stumbled her way into the adjourning bedroom and collapsed onto the bed they had once shared. She was asleep within seconds. She didn't feel him join her as he slid into bed next to her twenty minutes later, didn't respond as he wrapped his arms around her, and didn't object as he kissed her temple and wondered why the hell she had returned to him once more.

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**A/N:** Please review. I would love to know your thoughts! I promise to update soon.


	2. Tell Me

**A/N:** Nothing you recognize is mine.

**A/N:** I'm sorry it took me so long to update. The third chapter is already written and beta'd, and will be posted by Friday of this week, I guarantee it. Thank you to everyone that reviewed the first chapter. I intentionally made it ambiguous, but many of you accurately guessed the man (I suppose you all know me well enough to know the woman was Cameron). The pairing is now listed with the other story details. Sorry in advance to those who dislike it.

**A/N:** Melissa, thanks for your willingness to look at multiple versions of this chapter. I edited even more before posting it. You are leh awesomness.

* * *

Cameron awoke slowly the next morning, gradually becoming aware of her surroundings. She was lying on a bed that was not her own, though it was not entirely unfamiliar. She suddenly felt pressure across her chest and realized that someone's arm was draped across her. She shifted her position so she was looking at the person to whom the arm belonged and found herself face to face with Chase.

"Good morning." His accent was both familiar and foreign.

"Morning." A small smile crept across her lips and she suddenly felt herself filled with the same longing and regret that had plagued her for many nights after she had signed the divorce papers during the lockdown.

He removed his arm from her chest and rolled over onto his side. She watched him from the bed as he checked the clock and then stood up. "Sleep okay?" he asked over his shoulder as he walked to the closet.

"Yes, it was fine," she replied, playing with the corner of a pillowcase. Her hair fell in front of her face, and she ran her hand tentatively through it. It was dry now, but more tangled than ever.

"You can shower first if you'd like," Chase offered. She glanced at him. He was standing near the closet, holding a white shirt on a hanger and watching her intently. When their eyes met, she realized how awful she must look, with her makeup running everywhere. She knew it could only look worse in the daylight. He didn't say anything, but instead dropped the shirt onto the bed and sat down next to her. She pulled herself into a sitting position as he approached.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

She knew the question was coming, but the answer that came out of her mouth surprised her. "Yes."

Chase considered her for a moment and then reached over to grab the phone on the table by his bed. They both knew House would not be awake this early, so Cameron was surprised when the person on the other end of the line picked up. "Yeah, it's me," he said. "I'm not coming in today. Something…came up." His eyes flickered toward her again. "Great, thanks." He replaced the receiver. "Foreman," he said, in response to her questioning stare. "Faster, more effective, and I don't have to listen to any of House's crap."

"That's good," she muttered, unable to hold his gaze any longer. She felt his hand on her cheek, but he didn't try to meet her eyes. Wordlessly, he moved his hand to her hair and ran his fingers through the tangles.

"Do you want to shower before we talk? I can get something for breakfast."

"Sure," she answered without looking up. She felt him slide off the bed and heard the door close as he left the room. Cameron slowly began peeling off her clothes. Although they were dry, they were stiff from the rain. She pulled her pants off with most difficulty and frowned at a bruise on her upper leg. She wondered how she had gotten it. She supposed she must have run into something in her haste.

The water in the shower beat down onto her, just as she remembered. She had normally found this shower head too strong, but today it was oddly soothing. She noticed that Chase hadn't kept any of her shampoo or conditioner, so she picked up his, wrinkling her nose slightly at the smell. She scrubbed at her body, washing away two days' worth of sweat and grime. Once she was done, she looked much better, and felt a bit better, too. The towel and clothes Chase had retrieved for her the night before were still sitting on the counter. He had brought her one of his t-shirts and a pair of sweatpants – thankfully, one that had a drawstring, she noted. After she dressed, she brushed out her hair, but had to leave it wet, as Chase did not own a hair dryer.

She entered the kitchen as Chase was sliding eggs onto plates. He chuckled slightly at her appearance. "Those clothes don't really suit you, do they?"

"They're fine," she assured him as she accepted the plate of eggs and bacon he passed to her. "Thanks."

"No problem."

They ate their meal in silence, both acutely aware of the other's presence, yet unable to find the right way to begin speaking. Cameron ate slowly, dreading the moment he would ask her not what was wrong, but why she had come to him, of all people. She had made the decision almost instinctively, though not without several reconsiderations. It was familiar, it was safe, but their last meeting had been so emotional, she was unsure he would want to see her again.

"Do you want me to pick up some dye?"

His question surprised her almost as much as the fact he had begun speaking. "Pick up some dye?" she repeated. "Oh." She touched her hair with her left hand; even clean, she knew her hair still looked horrible. "Yeah…yeah, okay. I guess. I mean, I think I like it better this way – brown, I mean."

He smiled. "I like it better brown, too. You know, you could dye the blond part your natural color and wait for your hair to grow out, if you want your hair brown sooner."

"Hm, maybe." She fell silent once more, but Chase quickly broke the silence again.

"Can I ask a question?" She nodded, though slightly wary of what he would say next. "Why did you let it get this bad?"

Cameron frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Your hair," he clarified. "I've never seen the ends like this..." His voice trailed off as he looked at her. "I'm sorry," he said quickly. "Never mind."

Cameron bit her lip; she knew where Chase was going with this. It wasn't that he particularly cared about the roots - it was that he was worried about what they might mean. It was his back-door way of asking if something was wrong, because surely if everything were fine, she would have taken better care of herself and her hair.

"You're right," she said aloud. She looked pointedly at him. "You're right, something is wrong."

Chase dropped his fork and walked over to her. She expected to feel him touch her, but he kept his hands at his side as he watched her. He finally extended his hand. "Tell me what's wrong."

She hesitated a second before taking his hand and letting him lead her over to the living room couch. His blue-green eyes were cloudy with concern as he sat beside her and the familiar silence filled the room once more. Cameron looked down at her hands. "It's kind of a long story."

"Well, we have all day."

She nodded vaguely. "I just don't know where to begin."

Chase gave a weak laugh. "Is this where I suggest you start at the beginning?"

Cameron almost smiled. "Maybe?" But instead of speaking, Chase became quiet. She could feel him watching her, waiting for her to begin. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "So…there's this…guy." She quickly glanced up to see Chase's reaction.

His face was impassive. "A guy," he repeated. "Nice guy?"

"Um…well…" Cameron stammered. She didn't know what to say, but her hesitation said it all.

"What did he do to you?" Chase's voice was suddenly dangerously low. "Did he hurt you?"

Cameron opened her mouth to respond, but a sense of foreboding threatened to strangle her. _Don't tell anyone._ His threat resounded in her head.

"I can't," she whispered. "He said I could never tell, and I – I'm scared -"

"Allison," he interrupted, "look at me." She obliged. "You came here because you're scared. I get it. I'm glad you're here."

His words took her by surprise. "Really?"

"Really," he repeated, squeezing her hand. "I want to help you."

She smiled slightly. "I want you to help me, too." Chase leaned forward and she wrapped her arms around him.

"You used to be able to tell me anything," he said softly. "I hope you know you still can."

The steady rhythm of his hand moving along her back soothed her. She tightened her grasp around his neck as she breathed in the comfort that his embrace provided. She swallowed hard, as though she could force the fear down her throat if she put enough effort into the action. Her heart raced in her chest and for one horrifying second she imagined that if she opened her mouth, she would unconsciously impose a limit on the number of beats it had left. Then the moment passed, and she leaned closer to her ex-husband. She took a breath.

"I think I'm being stalked."

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**A/N:** Please make my day by submitting a review!


	3. Believe Me

**Disclaimer:** Nothing you see here is mine.

**A/N:** Thanks to everyone that left such wonderful reviews last time. Silver blaze, your observation is very astute...and that's all I'm saying!

**A/N:** Melissa is a balla. Everyone wish her happy birthday!

* * *

As soon as the words left her mouth, Chase pulled back and studied her face. She waited with bated breath, as though he were about to pass judgment. His eyes were concerned, but at the same time, narrowed, and she could tell he was slightly suspicious. She chewed on the inside of her bottom lip as she waited for him to speak.

"Stalked?" he repeated. His tone was one of disbelief, but it also carried a hint of worry. "What do you mean, 'stalked'?"

Cameron swallowed. "I mean…_stalked_. Someone is stalking me. As in, following me. Shows up at the hospital unannounced…."

"Okay," he said, cutting across her, and she could tell from his tone that he was thinking hard and fast again. "Have you called the police?"

She shook her head quickly. "No. I can't call the police." The familiar feelings of panic began to slowly flood her stomach. "He'll know that I called them. He'll know that I called them, and then he'll kill me before they get there!"

Chase's brow furrowed. "Is that what he told you?"

"Yes," Cameron answered breathlessly. "He told me I would never be safe as long as he was watching me. Like yesterday – I was at the hospital when he showed up again to the E.R. He looked at me and gave this smile, and then I ran…" Her words were coming out in a rush now. She knew she shouldn't have told Chase, that telling him would surely have put them both in danger, but now that she had started talking, she couldn't stop herself. "I got on a bus and came here. I didn't have time for – for anything. No car, no clothes, no money…." Her eyes suddenly widened as the severity of the situation hit her. "I shouldn't have come here. I'm sorry – I shouldn't have imposed like this-"

"Cameron, stop." His eyes were definitely suspicious now. Her heart sank. He didn't believe her. The story sounded too outrageous, too dramatic. He had never been one for drama.

"I know it sounds crazy," she began, but he interrupted her.

"You're right, it really does." He paused to draw breath and she could tell he was collecting his thoughts. "A man is stalking you and you haven't called the police? You show up here in the middle of the night, sopping wet, after having left the hospital because you think you saw him there and you expect me to – to just be okay with that?"

His words stung her. They weren't harsh, but they did confirm the fears and misgivings she'd felt at coming to him. Of course she couldn't expect him to accept her with open arms; that would have been unrealistic. But, then again, she realized as she sat there and listened to him say what she already knew, she had hoped that she'd been wrong.

"Chase," she tried again, "I know this is crazy. But I divorced you, remember?" Her voice started trembling and she steeled herself to keep making eye contact. "Our relationship is supposed to be over, yet here I am again. I wouldn't be here if this weren't true."

She saw the muscles in his face relax slightly as the truth of her statement washed over him. "You're right," he said finally. "You divorced me." She waited for him to continue, but he didn't say anything else. The realization hit her; he'd thought she'd come back for him. Had she? Cameron had pondered the question more than once. She opened her mouth to reply, but no words came to her.

"I'm sorry," he continued at last. "I shouldn't have expected that." He seemed to have read the realization in her face.

She sighed. "No, I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't think this through enough."

"That's understandable," he replied quietly. "You were scared."

Unwillingly, Cameron felt a sense of relief. He accepted that she'd been scared; that was a good start. "Do you…believe me?" she asked slowly, painfully anticipating the answer.

"Yes," he answered firmly, and she was taken aback by the conviction in his voice. "I want to call the police." Cameron began to protest, but Chase quickly stopped her. "I know you're scared, but they can do something about it. Look, he doesn't know you're here, right? He's not going to find you either. Let's just put an end to all of this and call in the authorities. Hey," he pressed on when she tried to protest again, "you can put out a restraining order. He won't be able to come near you."

She shook her head so violently this time that Chase was forced to stop and listen. "I can't," she replied heavily. "I believe you," she continued, when she saw that he was going to cut her off. "I believe that it's safe here and that he won't find me. That's why I came here." She smiled slightly at him; he did not smile back. "It's not that I don't want to, because I think you're right, and I should get a restraining order. There's just one problem." Chase nodded, urging her to continue. "I don't know his name."

His eyes widened. "Wait, you've been seeing this guy and you don't even know his name?"

"I haven't been 'seeing him,'" she corrected, more sharply than she'd intended. "We went on one date, and that was it. But…" Her voice trailed off and she blushed.

"But what?" he prompted her.

Cameron cleared her throat. "But it was a blind date and we didn't have each other's last names," she finished quietly, unable to meet his eyes.

He raised his eyebrows. "You went on a blind date?" he repeated incredulously.

"Yeah," she answered, almost defiantly. "I mean, it wasn't a truly blind date, per se. Just a mutual friend that set us up. I can't call her for his name though; that would arouse too much suspicion…"

She broke off when she noticed Chase staring at her. For a second, Cameron was afraid he would start yelling. But then his face relaxed and he burst out laughing. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard!"

She was too upset to be relieved. It was as though something had snapped inside her, a temporary dam that had been keeping her emotions at bay. She had come to him scared, and now he was making fun of her and the situation? She could not make him see that this was no laughing matter. She tried to glare at him angrily, but her eyes filled with tears instead. Realizing his mistake, he stopped laughing immediately.

"Oh – no, Allison, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that…" She shook her head as though that would clear the tears from her eyes, but instead it made them start. Chase looked horrified. "Don't cry," he said quickly. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you cry!" He pulled her toward him again and pressed her head into his chest, letting her cry into his shirt. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he repeated. She was too numb to say anything else. She felt as though her emotions had been on too many roller coasters in the past twenty-four hours.

"I believe you," he said as he ran his fingers through her hair. "We don't have to call the police yet. You can stay here for as long as you need to. We'll figure this out together. Don't worry. You won't have to go through this alone." His words were coming out in a rush now and she could tell he was saying whatever he could think of to get her to stop crying, but she was grateful all the same. Her tears slowly subsided, replaced by an empty feeling in the pit of her stomach. He must have felt her relax because he pulled away from her a moment later and studied her face. "You're so beautiful," he murmured.

"What?" Her voice was hoarse.

"I said you're beautiful," he repeated.

She looked at him suspiciously. "I'm crying," she said softly. "There's nothing beautiful about that."

He gently rubbed her cheek with his thumb. "I think there is." He leaned in slowly and she knew that he was giving her time to pull away. When she didn't, he closed the distance between them and kissed her. Though he was kissing her lightly, she could feel the shared longing between them. She pulled away suddenly and looked at him seriously.

"I can't promise anything," she said honestly. The words fell painfully from her lips, but she knew she had to say them before either of them became too emotionally involved. "I'm probably more screwed up than ever."

"That's okay," he replied, and she knew he meant it. There was no trace of disappointment in his voice, or if there was, he was masking it very well. "But I think that we should at least try."

"Try," she repeated softly, tasting the word on her tongue. She smiled. "I think we can do that."

He leaned in to kiss her again. "I think so, too."

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**A/N:** This chapter wasn't my favorite to write, but I hope that you enjoyed it. I've begun writing the fourth chapter and I like that one a lot better. House appears next chapter - what will he say when he finds out Cameron has returned to PPTH? And is she really telling the truth? You'll find out soon! In the meantime, please review!


	4. Taunt Me

**Disclaimer:** Imagine that, I still own nothing.

**A/N:** Thanks to everyone that reviewed last time. I am really glad that all of you are enjoying the story. I realize that I should probably mention a timeline for this story - it takes place sometime in the sixth season after Lockdown. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to update. With finals and Spain (being there, not the World Cup), and work, I didn't have much time for writing or updating. But anyway, that's in the past now. I'm a third of the way done with the next chapter, so it will definitely be updated faster than this one.

**A/N:** Thanks to everyone that beta'd this story. Kara - thanks for your comments on characterization. Upon rereading, I definitely agreed. Pandorama - thanks for informing me that a certain character's cup size meant that her assets did not qualify as funbags. Melissa - thanks for being my brains and porcupines.

* * *

"Here comes trouble."

Cameron's eyes snapped to House as she and Chase entered the office. Thirteen, Foreman, and Taub were sitting around the table, files scattered around the table for what must have been their most recent case. House was by the whiteboard, per usual, a capped the dry-erase marker in his hand.

"Nice to see you again, Cameron," remarked Foreman. Taub and Thirteen stayed silent. "I take it this is what was so important yesterday," he added as an afterthought to Chase.

"You skipped school to screw your ex-wife?" House feigned shock. "Wait, I'm confused. Isn't that what you did three years ago? It certainly _looks_ like her three years ago. Is this a dream? Damn, that's disappointing. Why are you wearing so many clothes?"

"It's good to see you again, too," Cameron responded to Foreman, ignoring her former boss. She smiled at the other fellows, who nodded in return.

"It talks like her, too!" She continued to ignore him until he posed a direct question. "What are you doing here?"

She turned to look at House again. "Visiting for awhile. Cuddy offered me another spot in the E.R."

House's eyes narrowed. "No, she didn't. Cuddy can barely afford to keep all the doctors she currently has. Economy's receding and all, in case you hadn't noticed."

Cameron shrugged. "Ask her yourself." It was true that Cuddy had given her a job in the E.R., but it was also a job for practically no pay. Since she didn't know how long she'd be staying in Princeton, Cameron figured it was best to take the job now and figure out something more permanent later, if need be.

"So what are you actually doing here?" Foreman asked. "You didn't come back just to visit the E.R."

She and Chase had rehearsed their response to this question already, as she had felt it unnecessary to explain the real reason why she had come back. If she had had her way, she wouldn't have come back to the hospital at all. But Chase had insisted that she not stay alone in the house all day, and in the end, she had agreed. Being around people she knew was a better alternative to watching paid programming by herself anyway, if she was being honest. After this had been settled, they'd begun crafting their cover story. But before either one could open their mouth to repeat the well-practiced lie, House cut across.

"Isn't it obvious?" he scoffed, looking at Cameron's stomach. "She's been knocked up. Way to go, dude," he said, holding up his hand for a high-five from Chase. "Always knew you'd consummate the marriage eventually."

Chase kept his hands at his side. "Actually, she came back because her mother's best friend is dying." Cameron kept her mouth shut and tried to keep her face impassive. She knew that House knew she was a terrible liar. That's why she and Chase had decided that he would tell House the lie, and Cameron's silence would hopefully be passed off as her being too upset to speak.

"Right," said House. "I wasn't aware your mother ever lived here. Hicksville is a Midwestern city, isn't it?"

Cameron struggled to keep a plain expression. "Friend moved here ten years ago. Wanted to be closer to the casinos."

"A two hour drive is close?"

"Her son goes to Princeton. He lives at home."

"She's too old to have a college son."

"Grad school." She tried not to make it sound like a question.

"Right," House said again. But before he could say anything else, four pagers began shrieking. Cameron saw Chase unclip his pager from his belt loop. Immediately, the fellows pushed their chairs back from the table and headed for the door. Chase exchanged a look with Cameron.

"Go," House urged him. "You still work for me, don't you?" Chase gave her an apologetic glance and then hurried off after the rest of his teammates. Not wanting to be alone with House, Cameron began moving toward the exit as well. She was an arm's length from the door when he stopped her.

"Wait." Her arm fell to her side and she unwillingly turned around to face him again. "I wanted to congratulate you. Great story back there. Really riveting performance. I think even Foreman bought it."

"It's the truth," she said. Her mouth felt dry.

"Sure it is," he replied. "Nice clothes, by the way."

Cameron looked down. As she hadn't brought anything with her, she and Chase had gone shopping the day before to buy several necessities. The clothes she was wearing matched her usual style: blouse, pants, heels, but they were brand new.

"I can smell the dye from over here," he informed her. "On that cotton and in your hair. Didn't know you weren't allowed to bring clothing when visiting an ex. I suppose that would make certain things easier, though…" She didn't speak, hoping House would muse himself into silence. "Although I suppose the trip to your neighborhood Salvation Army was necessitated by the fact you can't go _everywhere_ naked. Hope you didn't do it on my behalf, though. I have no qualms about seeing your assets…meager though they may be."

She struggled to keep her voice steady. "You haven't changed at all."

"But you have." Trepidation filled her as he looked at her again. "What's his name?"

She didn't even bother asking herself how it was always the case that House knew everything. Instead she swallowed and tried to keep her gaze steady. She forced herself to think of Chase as she answered, "Robert."

House's eyes narrowed. "No, it isn't. That's not change, you two were already married."

"We were divorced," she pointed out.

"You _were_ divorced?" House repeated. "Aren't you _still_ divorced? Unless…You came back for _him_?"

Seeing her chance, Cameron said, "Fine, you caught us. I was lying. My mother's friend died three years ago and lived in Atlanta, Georgia. Her son is an undergrad at Emory. I came back because I realized my undying devotion and adoration for Chase and was too embarrassed to say it in front of the rest of the team. Happy?"

He considered this for a moment and began playing with the large ball on his desk. He threw it in the air and caught it as he said, "Yep. That's the 100th catch I've made today." She began to respond, but he cut her off. "Oh, you meant about you and your lie? And yes, I know that's still a lie, so stop looking so shocked. You're not that good an actress. And no, I'm still not happy. What's his actual name?"

Cameron felt her jaw clench and began moving toward the door again. She did not have the patience or composure to take any more of House's harassment about her predicament. "He doesn't have one," she said, fully aware that her anger was not hidden and that it would only make him suspect her more.

Sure enough, his response was, "I'd be more convinced if you could look less desperate about it." He moved toward her. "Maybe you won't tell me his name. Okay, that's fine, you really don't have to. I already know how this story played out. You went out with him a few times, casually at first, maybe even hooked up once or twice. No nasty, though, not until the fifth date. After you did it once, he couldn't get enough of it and started coming back for more. Which you liked, at first, but when he started bringing you flowers and candy and sickeningly sweet Hallmark cards, you got scared of his devotion and wanted to break it off. But you didn't want to hurt him in person, so you wrote him a note and left it in his mailbox before skipping down and finding yourself in the bed of an old lover." He paused to see the effect his words were having on her. Cameron felt the words wash over her and she tried not to listen, but the story was too interesting to ignore. "Am I right?"

She felt herself shaking, though whether from cold or anger, she couldn't tell. All she knew was that she had to leave the office as quickly as possible. She yanked open the door and stepped through it before House could stop her. She began walking briskly down the hall, intending go for a walk or head to the E.R., or do simply anything that involved being as far away from House as she could manage. She had almost reached the elevator when she heard House call, "Just because you left him once doesn't mean you won't see him again. Look what happened with Chase!"

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**A/N:** Please review and I promise to update soon.


	5. Bait Me

**A/N:** Nothing is mine.

**A/N:** Thanks so much to everyone that reviewed last time. I was really glad to see that, despite this story not being updated in a while, there were still people that read and took the time to review. I really appreciate it. Special shout out to my anonymous reviewers - your reviews mean a lot to me, even though I can't personally respond to them.

**A/N:** Melissa, thanks for beta reading. And for telling me it didn't suck. Pandorama, I used your line.

* * *

She kept walking at a brisk pace through the halls of the hospital. As she passed, some people called out to her or raised their hands in a welcoming gesture, but she ignored them as she made her to way to the elevator. She didn't realize until she was standing in the elevator and the metal doors were sliding shut that she had no idea which floor she wanted to go to. If she knew where Chase was, she would have gone there, but she didn't know what the pager had said, or even which patient the team was treating, so there was no floor to go to. Resigning herself, she pressed the button for the first floor. Perhaps an hour or two in the E.R. would help clear her mind.

The elevator stopped moving and the doors slid open again. She had taken three steps into the hallway when it happened. She wrapped her arms around herself as an unnaturally cold shiver washed over her. The hall that had once been filled with yells and the hustle and bustle of a trauma floor now seemed eerily silent. The feeling felt all too familiar to her. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to convince herself it was just her imagination playing tricks on her again. With her eyes closed, she took another step down the hall toward the E.R.

She suddenly froze as she sensed someone's presence behind her. She heard someone's loud breath behind her and their shuffle as they walked toward her. Panic gripped her and she forced herself to open her eyes so she could confront her pursuer. She whirled around.

No one was there.

She frowned; she had been sure she had felt someone behind her. She bit her lip slightly, allowing her breathing to return back to normal. Mentally, she scolded herself for allowing her mind to deceive her. _This is Princeton,_ she reminded herself. _He's not here_. All the same, as she turned back around and started walking toward the E.R. again, she couldn't help but remember what House had shouted to her as she was leaving his office.

"Cameron!"

She started and uttered a soft cry of shock as she spun around to see who had called her name. She let out a deep breath when she realized it had only been Wilson. Her surprise had not gone unnoticed by the oncologist, though; his eyes narrowed in apprehension as he approached her.

"Is everything okay?" he asked in a would-be light tone. She wasn't fooled. She knew it could have taken House just thirty seconds to relay his suspicions to Wilson.

"Yes, everything's fine," she responded as she felt her heart rate return to normal. "What are you doing down here?"

He gave her an odd look. "Heading to the E.R.," he answered slowly. "They called up for a consult. Are you heading there now? I'll walk over with you."

"Oh, um, okay," she said. She tried to smile reassuringly at him as they fell into step.

"So Cuddy managed to get you back here again?"

Her suspicions were confirmed; House had indeed talked to Wilson. She wondered how much he had said. "That's not why I came back," she replied, "but it's what I'm going to do to pass the time while I'm here."

"Hmm, House mentioned something about you visiting an old friend?"

She looked at him. His expression was neutral, but she could tell he had heard what House had to say about the truth of that story. She didn't say anything, but he spoke again instead.

"I know that we're not – I mean, that we weren't – aren't – that close, but you know that you can tell me…things…" She glanced back at him and he trailed off awkwardly. "If you want to, that is," he added lamely.

"Sharing dirty little secrets about your undercover job as a Swedish hooker?" The voice had come from behind them, but Cameron didn't need to turn around to know who had spoken. She thought about walking away, but noticed that Wilson had stopped, too. She resigned herself for round two. Cameron felt inwardly grateful that she wouldn't be dealing with House by herself again.

"I swear the one I had last week looked an awful lot like you."

"Leave her alone, House," Wilson said tiredly.

"Relax, I come bearing gifts." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pager. Cameron looked down at her belt loop and quickly realized the pager House held was hers. She had been carrying it when she and Chase had entered his office; she must have forgotten to clip it back on as she left. House looked at her expectantly, his hand outstretched.

"Thanks," she said, taking it from him and clipping it to her belt loop. "Probably a good idea to keep this one with me." She frowned. "How did you know I was down here?"

"I didn't stalk you, if that's what you're asking," House replied.

Though she kept her face impassive, Cameron's insides froze at his word choice. "What do you mean?"

"I mean what I say, which is to say, I say what I mean, if you get what I mean, that is." Her frown deepened and he sighed loudly. "You're in the hospital and you have nothing to do. Of course you would go see how many shards of glass you could pull out in the E.R."

"Right," she answered slowly. Her insides unclenched slightly. She couldn't be sure that she had really noticed anyone following her earlier; after all, when she'd turned around to look, no one had been behind her. It had only been her imagination.

"Was he a psychiatrist?"

"What?"

"A psychiatrist," House repeated. "Were you dating a psychiatrist? Is that why you're all of a sudden acting like a paranoid schizophrenic? Did you pick up some tricks of the trade through osmosis?"

Cameron was too stunned to speak, though Wilson voiced what was on her mind. "What the hell?"

"Wasn't talking to you, Wilson," House said loudly. He kept his gaze trained on Cameron. "Well?"

She was saved having to reply by the sound of a pager beeping. She looked down, but hers was blank. To her left, Wilson was unclipping the device from his belt. He showed it to her apologetically. "Duty calls." She just nodded as he hurried down the hall.

"At last. I was starting to worry he'd never leave."

Cameron sighed. "I'm starting to worry you won't either."

He covered his heart with his hand. "That hurts right here," he said with mock sincerity. Then his expression suddenly became serious. "Okay, that's enough games," he announced, dropping his hand to his side. "Whatever you're running from, get over it now. Go home and suck it up. You can't just come back here and mess things up again."

Cameron's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"Don't pretend you don't know," House snapped. "You can't be a human boomerang. You left him once, now stay away."

"You…care about Chase?" She could hardly believe her ears.

"No," he insisted. "I care about the performance level of the team. And it goes down when our resident Brit is indisposed."

Unwillingly, she felt a smile forming. "You _do_ care," she said quietly.

"Okay, fine, you caught me, I care," he conceded exasperatedly. "Keep that in mind when I tell you to get over your problems and go back home. I'm saying this because I care. Get over the stalker."

She felt her jaw drop. "How did you-"

"—know?" he finished. "I didn't, thanks for telling me." She stared at him accusingly, and he continued, "Your paranoia gave it away."

"I am not-"

"Yes, you are," he interrupted her. "Good thing, too." He raised his eyebrows. "You can never run away from a stalker."

"Hey!" a new voice shouted from down the hall.

Cameron turned and felt relief. Chase was coming toward them. "Oh, goody," she heard House mutter.

"What are you doing down here?" he asked Cameron.

"She's hiding from a stalker, can't you tell?"

Chase's eyes widened and he turned to her. "You told him?"

She shook her head. "He already knew."

"He knew?" Chase repeated in disbelief.

"Lucky guess," House said. "Just a thought. Feeling. Judging from the new dye, I'd say that she let the roots get so bad it wasn't even worth trying to go blond again. Tells me something kept her from dyeing her hair. Something like fear. Was it your hairdresser? Did the gay man touch you in the naughty place?"

"Shut up!" Chase cut across House loudly. Cameron tried to smile at him gratefully, but her muscles felt frozen. What scared her even more than the possibility of a stalker was how accurate House's description had been. It seemed impossible that he could know so much from so little information. Unless…She shook the idea from her head immediately. There was no way that House could have known anything – he was only trying to solve the puzzle, as always.

"This isn't a game to us, House!" Chase was saying angrily as Cameron turned her thoughts back to the present. "Things like this have real consequences and what you're doing helping. Stop playing mind games and capitalizing on the situation. Why can't you realize that sometimes people don't want to hear everything you have to say?"

For a moment, it seemed like House was going to retort just as angrily. However, he fell silent and instead turned away from them. Chase took a tentative step toward her and placed his hand on her shoulder. This time Cameron managed to smile for real.

"Good to see those pearly whites again!" House called from down the hall. Cameron glanced at him, but he was already walking away.

* * *

**A/N:** I've already started chapter 6 and it's pretty entertaining so far...next chapter changes the pace of the story. Let me know what you're thinking by leaving a review! I will be very grateful if you do.


	6. Remember Me

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing.

**A/N:** Thanks so much to everyone that reviewed last time! I really appreciate all the positive feedback. Again, a special shout-out to everyone that reviewed anonymously. You guys rock!

**A/N:** Melissa, iby2.

* * *

They were sitting at a crowded and expensive restaurant. She nervously adjusted her dress as she waited for the server to come back to take their orders. There was no reason to be concerned about the man sitting opposite her, though his face appeared unclear. Her nervousness was caused by the fact it had been over a year since she had been on a date with anyone, her ex-husband included.

"Nice earrings," he said.

She reached up and touched them, a smile breaking across her face. "Thank you. They were my mom's."

He nodded politely. "They're beautiful."

She laughed nervously and leaned forward. "Okay, I lied. They're not really my mom's, they're from my ex-husband." She suddenly frowned. She had always held that honesty was the best policy, but not to the point of bringing up an ex on a first date.

He took it in stride. Smirking, he replied, "I can see why you'd want to keep quiet about that. Anyone who let you go obviously doesn't know what's good for him. I'd be embarrassed to be married to him, too."

She laughed again. "I'm really not embarrassed by him. He was kind of amazing actually. Funny, smart – he was a doctor too, you know? He was perfect…until he wasn't."

"Bad in bed?"

"No, he was pretty great in bed. We were sleeping together for almost three years before we got married. Hmm, was it three years?" she wondered aloud. "Well, I guess it depends on whether or not you count the time I was high and seduced him in my apartment."

He raised his eyebrows. "You seduced a man while high?" He moved closer to her and placed his hand on her thigh. "You don't say."

"Yeah," she continued breathlessly. "He was pretty great until the whole murder thing. You know, I really don't condone what dictators do. I mean, Hitler was a bad guy and all. And I really like Jewish people. I would never want them killed."

He inched closer to her still. "I'm Jewish."

She ignored him. "But yeah, murder, I just can't handle it. He falsified a test so that we could give the guy the wrong drug on purpose. And the drug killed him. I mean, I know the dictator was going to go kill people, too, but murder is still wrong, you know?" She looked at him accusingly, as though he had been suggesting that murder was morally permissible under some circumstances.

"I agree completely," he whispered. He kissed her just below her ear. "Do you want to get out of here?"

She looked at him questioningly; surely they had not eaten already. But then her eye caught sight of the empty bread basket in the middle of the table. There were no plates; she supposed the waiter had already taken them away.

"Yeah, okay," she said slowly. She pushed her chair back from the table and stood up. Instantly, the world began to spin, and she clutched the table for support. He was behind her immediately.

"You're okay," he told her as he helped her stand and draped one of her arms across his shoulders. "You're just tired; it's been a long day at work."

"Mhm," she muttered. She certainly tired. She scarcely sensed herself felt walking as he led her from the restaurant to his car.

"Here," he said, opening the back door of his car. "Go ahead and lie down. It will be easier to fall asleep that way." She obeyed and he shut the door behind her. She pressed her face into her hands, willing the dizziness to pass.

He got into the front seat and began to drive. She supposed there must have been no one around at this hour, since he was driving rather quickly. She felt herself becoming drowsier with each turn he made. Sleep had almost overtaken her when the car suddenly stopped and she heard, from what seemed a great distance, a car door opening. She expected to feel herself being helped out of the car, but instead he crawled inside so that he was practically on top of her.

"Damn leg's not what it used to be," she heard him mumble.

His chest crushed hers as he leaned forward. She could feel his breath on her face, could smell the hints of alcohol. She suddenly became aware of his hands inching down her abdomen.

"Home," she whispered as fiercely as she could.

"Now, now, that's not my name," he replied as his fingers moved closer still.

She made to grab his hand, but found she could not move her arm. Panic and powerlessness overwhelmed her. "Stop," she whispered. "Stop." He ignored her. She wondered if he could even hear her, or if she had lost the power of speech, too. "Stop," she repeated. "Stop, stop, STOP!"

"It's okay." Her pleas continued to fall on deaf ears. As soon as his fingers brushed bare skin, someone screamed and she squeezed her eyes shut.

Her eyes snapped open. She was still lying on her back, not on the leather seats of a car, but on a mattress. Someone's arms were around her, but their body was off to the side, not on top of her. Her breath came in staggering gasps as she struggled to comprehend what was happening. She was drenched in sweat.

"Allison?"

"Turn on the light," she whispered.

She felt Chase move beside her as he reached over to turn on the lamp. Light flooded the room. Chase was lying next to her, watching her worriedly. Cameron bit her lip and turned away from him.

"Here, sit up," he said, pulling her into a sitting position beside him. "I'll be right back."

Cameron felt him leave as she continued blinking back tears from her eyes. Her breathing had become more regular as she took in the familiar surroundings. The dream had been so vivid, she half-thought it was not a dream, but a memory. There certainly had been familiar parts. But if it was a memory, then why had she forgotten so much of it? She shook her head, trying to clear her mind. It had to be a dream - she would remember if something like _that_ had happened to her…

"Do you want to talk about it?" Chase had returned. He offered her the glass of water as he sat down again.

She took the water from him, but didn't drink it. "Are your dreams ever of things that actually happened?" she asked quietly.

"Sometimes," he answered. "But usually the dreams just combine some things that really happened with other things that didn't." He looked at her uncertainly. "Did you – was your dream about something that happened with the guy?"

"I… I don't know. Maybe," she replied. "I think he was in it…his face was kind of unclear, so I can't be sure. But it could have been him. We were on a date somewhere." She winced; the details of the conversation were vague but the ones she could remember were embarrassingly painful. "I think that part actually happened. But afterward…"

"What happened afterward?" he prompted.

"Um, I was in his car, and we stopped somewhere. And he got in the back seat with me and-"

"You had sex with him?" She saw a brief flash of hurt in his eyes.

"I don't know," she answered honestly. "I didn't want to." She hugged her arms around herself as she continued softly, "But in the dream, when he got into the backseat of the car and he was on top of me, he – he-"

"He forced you?" Chase finished, looking horrified. She nodded, feeling her resolve break. Chase took the glass from her hand and pulled her toward him as the tears finally began to fall.

"I know it was a dream, and dreams aren't real," she cried, "but _he_ was real, and I think the date was real, and what if – what if I really was-"

"You weren't," he said firmly, though she could tell he wasn't completely convinced. "It was just a dream, a nightmare." He hugged her tighter. "I promise it was just a dream."

He held her until her tears had subsided and her eyes had closed. She supposed he thought she had fallen back asleep, for he shifted their position so they were lying down again. She felt him reach out and turn the lamp off, plunging them into darkness again. His breathing soon became slow and even, though she still lay awake, unable to shake the feeling that something was wrong.

"Chase?"

He didn't stir. She smiled sadly and whispered, "If it was just a dream, why can't I remember what actually happened?"

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**A/N:** Please leave a review! The next chapter has been written and beta'd, but most will be rewritten before it's posted, on account of my muse going a bit crazy with anger. I should have that update by the end of the week. Thanks!


	7. Confront Me

**Disclaimer:** I still own nada.

**A/N:** Thanks to everyone that reviewed last time. I really enjoyed hearing all the great feedback! Here is the seventh chapter, as promised! This chapter is really the beginning of the climax to the end.

**A/N:** Gracias a Melissa, for putting up with two versions of this chapter. Pandorama, you made everyone in this chapter thoroughly less elated.

* * *

Cameron checked her watch as she hurried up the sidewalk to the E.R. She had been due to start her shift nearly five minutes ago, but a last minute scramble to find her wallet at the house had made her late. Chase had gone ahead at her urging; no use for both of them to arrive late to work. She had barely made it out of the house fast enough to catch the bus. She pulled her hair up into a ponytail as she went.

The sudden sound of footsteps behind her made her stop. Cameron listened hard, but it seemed that whoever was behind her was still there. The increase in volume told her the person seemed to be drawing closer. The footsteps were slow and uneven, but never wavered. She froze, the familiar feelings of fear and uncertainty filling her. Swallowing her panic, she forced herself to turn around.

House stared back at her. "Nice ponytail," he said, as a way of greeting.

"_Nice earrings," he said, refusing to meet her eyes._

_She looked up, startled. "My mom's, thank you."_

"_Nice shoes," he continued, raising his eyebrows uneasily. "Comfortable?" _

Her eyes widened as the memory washed over her. She instinctively took a step back. He watched her with more curiosity than concern.

"It was you," Cameron gasped. She knew it wasn't a dream this time. The details came rushing back to her. The date, the conversation, their night together, everything. Despite the unnerving realization that the stalker was right in front of her, she could not help but feel relieved that the worst parts of the dream had been only a dream.

"What are you talking about?" House asked abruptly.

"I'm talking about you," she said, and her voice was filled with an almost audible incredulity. "You're the one stalking me."

He rolled his eyes. "No, I'm not. This is a free country. It's a sidewalk. I'm allowed to walk on it. Sometimes that even means I'm forced to walk behind someone."

Cameron shook her head. "It's not just the sidewalk," she pressed. "It was the other day, in the hallway on the way to the E.R. And it was all last month, when someone was following me in the parking lot of the hospital. You've been the one sending flowers and chocolates and everything." She could have laughed. Relief flooded her. No one was after her at all; it had only been House.

His eyes narrowed. "Why would I send you flowers?"

This time, she did laugh. His joke was so obvious, she wondered why he hadn't given it up yet. "Because we went on a date."

He frowned. "We went on a date five years ago."

She could sense his frustration, but it only amused her further to have caught him at his own game. "Have you finally realized that you love me?" she teased.

"I don't love you now, and I didn't love you then," he snapped. "I only went on that date with you so that you would come back to work for me. Don't you remember?"

"Of course I do," she said, allowing some of her own annoyance to seep into her voice. She couldn't understand why House would not simply admit she had figured out the rouse. "And I know that you don't love me," she informed him. "I don't love you either. I love Chase, and he loves me. And-" She suddenly broke off as another grin stole over her face. "That's why you sent me all those things. You wanted me to _think_ someone was stalking me, so I would be too scared to stay where I was. And then you figured I would come back here, to Chase, and get back together with him again."

House could only stare at her. "Do you get off on erotic asphyxiation or something? Because that's the only explanation I have for how you could have possibly lost so many brain cells between yesterday and today."

Cameron only smiled. "Thanks," she said, gently patting his arm. She felt lighter than she had in months as she entered the hospital, leaving a frowning House in her wake.

"There you are! I was wondering when you'd-" Chase faltered as he caught sight of her face. "Are you listening to me?"

"What – yes, I am," she said quickly, pulling herself from her thoughts. She smiled reassuringly and made to leave, but he stopped her.

"Hang on a minute." His eyes searched hers. "Did something happen?"

Cameron nodded. "I figured out who the stalker is."

She registered the shock in his eyes. "What?"

"I know who it is," Cameron repeated. She waited for the change in his expression, but it never came. Instead, his brow furrowed and he seemed confused. Without a word, he took her by the hand and led her away from the rest of the people in the lobby.

"Where are we going?"

He didn't answer, but her answer came soon enough: they stopped in one of the hallways leading away from the people milling in. Though they were no longer moving, he hadn't let go of her hand. His grip, she noted, actually seemed to have tightened, as though he were trying to tether more than just her body to him. In response to her questioning stare, he said, "I dDidn't think we should talk about this in the open." He looked back at the crowded lobby. "Anyway, how did you figure it out? I thought you said you didn't know his name."

"That's because there was no name," she informed him in a low voice. "There wasn't a stalker at all. It was just House playing a stupid game."

His reaction was not at all the one she had expected. Instead of sharing her relief, he raised his eyebrows skeptically at her response. He dropped her hand and pulled back. Cameron's face fell slightly at his reaction, but she refused to allow herself to be deterred.

"I realized it when I ran into him just now. The dream last night, it was just like you said. A memory mixed with a dream. The date in the dream was the date I went on with House, five years ago."

These words only horrified him more. "You dream about being raped by House?"

"What – no!" she exclaimed. "I mean, yes, that's what happened in my dream, but it's not like I wanted that to happen-"

"Are you sure?" he asked, his voice hard and bitter. "Is that why you came back here? For him?"

"No!" she insisted. "No, I came back here for you."

"That's not what you said before," he pointed out. "You said you came back here because you were afraid."

"Yes, but that was part of House's plan all along," she said. She felt a sense of desperation to make Chase believe her. She hadn't expected him to be hurt; why couldn't he see that House had only done all of this so that they could be together? "House pretended to be my stalker so I would be too scared to stay where I was. He knew that I would come back to Princeton and that I would come to you. He knew that you make me feel safe." She reached out to touch him, but he stepped further away from her.

"Did you tell House all of this?" he asked. Cameron nodded. "What did he say when you told him?"

"He pretended that he hadn't done any of it, of course," she replied. "But isn't it obvious that he did? He clearly didn't want to admit to me that he'd actually done something nice for us. Come on," she added, stepping closer to him. To her relief, Chase didn't back up again. "This is good news. No one is after me. It was just House's idea of a joke."

"This is not _good news_!" Chase said angrily. Alarmed, Cameron took a step back from him this time. "You – you're still in love with him, aren't you? You made up the entire stalker thing so that you could pretend House was still in love with you? That's not good news, Cameron, that's just sick!"

Her eyes filled with tears. "How can you say that?"

He stared at her, as though he were considering an answer. After a minute, however, he simply shook his head. "We'll talk about this later," he said stiffly as he turned and walked away.

"Wait!" she called as the tears began to slide down her cheeks. "Don't leave me! I love you!"

"That's what you said about me, too," a low voice said from behind her.

Cameron whirled around, but no one was there.

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**A/N:** Thanks for reading, now how about a nice review? Chapters 8 (and 9!) have been written, although they remain unedited. Perhaps your reviews will encourage Melissa to beta faster. =P While you're waiting for my next update, feel free to check out my humor oneshot "Bottoms Up" which can be found on my profile page. And then read Pandorama's companion piece, Peculiar Bedfellows.


	8. Hit Me

**Disclaimer:** The usual. I don't own anything.

**A/N:** Thanks to everyone that reviewed last time. There was a great response for last chapter! I really enjoyed hearing all of your theories about who the stalker is. This chapter (and the next one) should throw all you mystery-seekers for a loop.

**A/N:** Thanks to Melissa, whose uber-pickiness about the parts of flowers really brought this story to a new level.

For my anonymous reviewers - Lov3good, Kara, and Ellie - thanks for all your love and support. I really appreciate you guys!

* * *

"Hey, Dr. Cameron, are you heading home?"

Cameron turned around. One of the charge nurses was looking at her from the admit desk. She sighed, preparing herself for the chart the nurse would inevitably hand her to delay her departure. It had not been a particularly good day and she was eager to leave.

"Yeah, I was just going," she replied. "I was off at six."

"Right, of course," the nurse said. "It's just that I was supposed to give you something before you left." Cameron frowned and walked over to see what it was.

"They arrived while you were in the middle of a trauma, so the delivery guy left them here." The nurse bent over and picked something up from the floor. A moment later, the nurse reappeared holding a large bouquet of flowers with a white envelope tucked in the petals. "They're beautiful, aren't they?" she gushed admiringly. "Someone has really good taste…Are you and Dr. Chase back together now?"

"Yeah, something like that," murmured Cameron absently. She wondered vaguely why Chase would have sent her flowers; did he really feel that guilty about their disagreement that morning? She frowned as she picked up the envelope. The outside was blank. She turned it over curiously; it was sealed with a gold sticker.

"Anyway, have a nice night."

Cameron barely heard her. She slit the seal with her fingernail and pulled out the card. It was just a plain sheet of paper. She recognized the label at the top as having come from the flower shop near the hospital. She wondered why the florist had bothered sealing the note in an envelope; surely whatever brief apology Chase could have written could have just been written onto an unsealed card?

_No hard feelings_.

No hard feelings? Her eyes narrowed. That was a bit contrived for an apology, wasn't it? The typed note wasn't even signed, not to mention the apology wasn't much of an apology at all. They could have had a much more productive discussion at home. Annoyed, Cameron folded the note in half and looked around for the trash. She was just about to drop the note when the writing caught her eye.

There was something else typed on the back.

She unfolded the note and smoothed out the crease. What she read was nearly enough to make her drop the bouquet.

_If you tell anyone else about me, I'll kill you both._

Her breath caught in her throat as a thousand questions raced through her mind. How had he found out? How had he found her? What did this mean?

And somewhere, as if coming through a thick fog, the realization surfaced that she had been wrong after all. The stalker hadn't been House; it had been someone else.

"Hey."

She jumped upon hearing Chase's voice behind her. She whirled around, clutching the note to her chest. "Hi," she greeted him tentatively.

"Look," he said, clearly sensing her trepidation, "I'm sorry about before, all right? I overreacted a bit. And I think…" He broke off as he caught sight of the bouquet behind her. Frowning, he asked, "Who are the flowers from?"

"They're, um, I – I thought they were from you?" She knew it came out as a question, but a hesitant answer was better than no answer at all. The flowers couldn't have come from him, since they had come from –

"I didn't send you flowers," he answered suspiciously. "Was there a note?" His eyes found the paper in her hand. "Is that it?"

"I – yes," she conceded. She knew he would read the note sooner or later, but the stalker's threat felt burned into her eyes. _If you tell anyone else about us, I'll kill you both_. The 'both' had to mean her and Chase; she hadn't told anyone else, really. Even House didn't know how close he was to the truth.

"Can I see it?"

She bit her lip, feeling the sweat from her palms dampen the page. He didn't break his gaze, and after a minute, she felt herself slowly extending her arm, holding the paper out to him. He took it from her and read the first line. He looked up uneasily.

"That's it?"

"Turn it over," she whispered. Cameron felt as though she were sealing her own fate with the command.

He obliged. A few seconds later, he tore his eyes from the page. "We're calling the police."

"No!" she exclaimed. "We can't call them. If we do, he'll only kill us faster."

"'Kill us faster'?" Chase repeated in disbelief. "Come on, you can't really believe that, can you? How would he know? We could go to the police station - we would be completely safe there. The guy's not stupid enough to try shooting at us while we're in a room surrounded by cops."

"Really?" she asked skeptically. "How do you know he wouldn't try to kill us on the way to the station? What if he's outside watching us right now?"

"Stop panicking," Chase said, clasping her hands and scrunching the note between them. "He's not outside. He can't be watching us. We'll drive to the police station now and tell them, and everything will be fine."

She shook her head. "But what if-"

"No," he said firmly. "No 'what if's.' What if nothing. Come on," he said, taking one of her hands. "Let's go."

She hesitated, vacillating on the spot. She looked at the note clenched in Chase's other hand and considered the threat again. How much truth could there be? Chase's suggestion to go to the police and tell them at the station did seem a lot safer than attempting to call them and wait for them to arrive. She had to admit he had a point; it would be difficult, not to mention stupid, to attack them while at a police station.

"Okay." She squeezed his hand. "We can go." He smiled at her as they headed for the exit, Chase carrying the now message-less bouquet to hand over to the police as evidence. They had just stepped outside when she stopped him. "Wait," she said, "I have to tell you something." He turned to face her, waiting expectantly. Cameron drew a breath and let it out slowly. "I'm sorry that I thought the stalker was House." He opened his mouth to reply but she barreled on, "I don't know what I was thinking. It seems silly now. I should have believed him earlier when he said he didn't do it, and I should have listened to you when you tried to talk me out of it." She shifted her weight between the balls of her feet. "I guess it was easier to believe someone was playing a joke than to face reality. How sick is that?"

"It's not sick," he replied. "It's human. It's always easier to believe something that's less scary than reality." He rubbed the back of her hand. "Thank you for apologizing. I'm sorry I was angry earlier. I guess this whole situation just has me on edge."

"That makes two of us," she said. "But it'll be all over soon, right?" she added softly as an afterthought.

"Come on," he said in reply, leading her by the hand again. They reached the end of the sidewalk and stepped off the curb into the street that led to the parking lot. It was silent except for the sound of their steps as they walked.

Suddenly, Cameron heard the roar of an engine starting. Startled, she broke apart from Chase and looked for the source of the noise. Her answer came a moment later: A car was accelerating down the street in front of the lot. She barely heard Chase's cry of warning and had even less time to run; she felt the car make contact with her body and then the sensation of falling until all she could see was black.

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**A/N:** Don't fret, chapter 9 is written, beta'd, and ready to post. However, I'll be holding it hostage until you review. If you're looking for some more Chameron in the meantime, go to my profile page and click on the oneshot "Hold Me In Your Memory." Thanks!


	9. Defend Me

**Disclaimer:** I still own nada.

**A/N:** Wow. I think I need to threaten to hold chapters hostage more often! Thanks so much to everyone that reviewed chapter 8. If you do the same with chapter 9, I promise to update faster. (To give you an incentive, chapters 10 and 11 have already been written, so technically I'm holding _two_ chapters hostage this time!) It's been really fun playing the mystery game with all of you - here comes another twist!

**A/N:** Melissa, you rock my socks. Thanks for always being so accurate about everything. You nit-pick with love!

* * *

The first thing she was conscious of was that her head ached and felt heavy. All she could see was darkness, but before she could panic, she realized that was only because her eyelids were still closed. When she tried to open them, though, a searing pain shot through her head and she resolved to keep them closed a while longer. She strained her ears for the sound of footsteps or even soft muttering, but the silence seemed to indicate that no one was with her in the room.

A minute later, she no longer needed to strain her ears to hear. The angry explosion outside her door could probably be heard in every room on this hallway.

"Don't tell me I didn't see it happen, I was right there with her!"

"Dr. Chase!" another voice, this time female, implored. "Lower your voice or I will have to ask you to leave." Cameron vaguely recognized the remonstration as Cuddy's.

"Don't tell me to calm down!" yelled Chase, who, judging by how clearly she could still hear his words, had made no effort to lower his voice. "I want that bastard arrested for attempted murder!"

Before Cuddy could respond, there was a loud "_You!_" and the sound of running steps. She heard a dull thud as what sounded like a body hit the wall. Despite the mounting headache that the noise was doing nothing to help, she also felt fearfully curious. She was sure it had been Chase who had yelled again, and she knew it had to be because he recognized whoever had come down the hall as someone dangerous - perhaps even the stalker? Curiosity fought pain and she forced her eyes open so she could see what was happening in the hallway. Though the room she was lying in had dim lights, the light in the hallway outside was more than enough to make out the figures. Through the glass windows of her room, she could see the scene unfolding in front of her. Cuddy was standing rigidly, a furious expression on her face. Wilson was there, too, frozen with trepidation. She saw Chase backing away from the last man, who was clutching the side of his face where he had been hit. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw the cane.

"Is that the best you've got?" House asked roughly. "My grandmother can hit better than that, and she's _dead_."

The look on Chase's face had become murderous. Though a glass wall separated them, Cameron felt herself unconsciously leaning as far back into her pillows as possible, as though that would put even more distance between them. Chase leapt forward to attack House again, but Wilson darted between them.

"Stop this now, both of you!" he said, trying to gain some control over the situation, or perhaps just Chase. House's expression looked more amused than anything.

Chase tried to push Wilson out of the way. "Move!" he shouted. "He tried to run her over– I'm going to kill him!" Wilson appeared so shocked at these words that he didn't react fast enough to stop Chase from lunging forward and hitting House again with his fist.

"Hey!" House snapped, jabbing his cane onto Chase's foot. "No fair! You can't hit a cripple!"

"I don't care if you're a damn paraplegic. You tried to run Cameron down in the parking lot!"

The door wasn't slid shut all the way; that's why she could hear so much of their conversation, she realized. No one else seemed to have noticed this. When she looked back at the people outside her room, she saw Wilson's look of confusion. Even Cuddy seemed hesitant. Wilson turned to House. "Is that true?"

But House merely rolled his eyes. "Are you about to ask me if Santa Claus exists, too?"

Cuddy looked exasperated. Stepping forward, she grabbed Chase's arm tightly and spoke stern words to him that Cameron couldn't hear. She supposed Cuddy was trying to restore some sense of decency into the conversation.

"No, I am not in shock!" Chase said loudly, wrenching his arm from her grasp. "I know what I saw!"

Now it was Wilson's turn to be hesitant. He looked uneasily between Chase and House, and then stopped at his best friend. Though Wilson, too, had adopted a lower tone, what he said was still quite plain from House's reaction – the words caused House to draw himself up to his full height and begin to berate Wilson with his response. His voice grew louder and eventually Cameron was able to hear his words again.

"She ran in front of my car! I didn't have time to break – she just came out of nowhere-"

"That's crap!" Chase exclaimed, even more loudelyr than House had. She saw Wilson raise his hand to silence him, but Chase would not be deterred. "She was right behind me. We were clearly walking to the parking lot. You can't possibly have missed her-"

"I didn't see her!" House protested. "It was dark, she was wearing dark clothes. What kind of idiot wears dark clothes at night, anyway?" Chase raised his hand to hit House again, but this time, Wilson was successful in restraining him. "It was an _accident_!" he said exasperatedly, as though talking down to an over-emotional toddler. "I signed that damn Hippocratic Oath. Why would I want to hurt Cameron?"

"Are you seriously asking that?" Chase said in disbelief. "You've been stalking her!"

"Do you _both _get off on erotic asphyix-" House began incredulously, but Chase cut him off.

"I didn't believe her when she told me earlier, but now it's the only thing that makes sense. You sent her the flowers and messages back home, you scared her enough to make her come back here. And you sent that bouquet today with that note," he rummaged in his pocket and extracted the folded piece of paper, "that note, that threatened to kill her!"

Wilson took the paper from him, his expression growing even more uneasy. He read the first line of text, and then flipped the note over to the other side. Cameron saw House looking over the oncologist's shoulder, though it didn't really look like he was reading the note himself. Was that because he already knew what it said?

Wilson turned to his best friend. His voice was low and Cameron missed the words, but the meaning was clear. _Did you write this?_

House shook his head.

"Stop lying!" yelled Chase. "You can't tell me it's a coincidence that just hours after Cameron received this death threat, someone tried to run her down right outside the hospital."

"You're an idiot," House pronounced. "She wrote this note to herself."

Chase's eyes narrowed. "What?"

She saw House sigh theatrically and shake his head. "It's your fifth year in my department, and you're still so blind to the symptoms all around you. She wrote this note to herself. Look at the handwriting. It's clearly hers."

"The note is typed!" Chase snapped.

"I know, but the font choice is just so Cameron, isn't it? Verdana is a very girly font." Perhaps House noticed Chase's murderous expression again, because he pressed on, "Don't believe me? Check her wallet. You'll find the receipt for the flower shop that the bouquet was sent from. She sent the flowers to herself, too."

"Why the hell would she do that?" Chase replied angrily. "She's not psychotic!"

"_She_ is awake." This time, it had been Cuddy who had spoken. Everyone else turned to look inside the room. Cameron knew it would be pointless to feign sleep. She had grown more and more attentive as the conversation wore on, and as her concentration improved, she thought less about the movement she was making as she shifted positions. Cuddy's announcement had come precisely after Cameron had attempted to move slightly to the right so that she could free her right fingers, which were falling asleep underneath her back.

The door opened. Despite there being four people outside, only one of them entered. Wilson hung back naturally, and Cuddy had clearly told House not to enter the room. Chase walked purposefully to the side of her bed and pulled up a chair.

"Hey," she rasped as he sat down.

"Hey." Despite having just sat down, he stood up immediately and walked to the stand where the water pitcher was. He poured some water into a paper cup, and then walked back to his seat, handing her the cup.

"Thanks," she said. She hadn't realized how dry her throat was when she was listening to the outside conversation, but now her throat felt as though she hadn't had water in days. "What happened?"

"You have a concussion," he answered. That explained the head pain, she noted wryly. "You were hit by a car near the parking lot."

She had gathered as much from the conversation, but she was surprised that the words still scared her. "He was driving, wasn't he?" she whispered.

He leaned forward and wrapped his fingers around hers. "House was driving, yes."

"Was it an accident?" she asked, though she pretty much knew the answer.

"No."

She considered this for a moment, and then asked, "What do we do?"

He squeezed her hand, a determined gleam in his eye. "We get the hell out of here."

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**A/N:** Read+review=update faster!


	10. Break Me

**Disclaimer:** Me own nada.

**A/N:** Wow! The response for each chapter is getting better and better! Let's see if you guys can't keep that up. Here is chapter 10, completely revamped from the original version I had, but I think you will enjoy this chapter a lot more. Chapter 11 has been revamped to match and is beta'd, edited, and ready to be posted. I think you will find both chapters much more exciting and enjoyable. Chapter 12 (the final chapter) is the epilogue and is still unwritten, although my muse is hard at work in the idea factory.

**A/N:** Mucho thanks to Melissa for betaing the first (really terrible) version of this chapter, and then giving me the harshest critique ever to make me write this other version. I can't believe this is the version I'm actually going to post! You are the bestest beta ever.

Shout out to those that reviewed anonymously - Pandorama (not like we didn't discuss your review over AIM, but, still), Sammy, Lov3good, and Silverblaze (just for you, I released the chapters...er, well, one of them anyway!)

* * *

"Dr. Chase, the police are here."

Cameron shifted her position on the uncomfortable hospital bed when she felt Chase move. Though she had been falling asleep, she was suddenly alert and wary. She pulled herself into a sitting position as Chase stood and turned to follow Cuddy from the room.

"Wait," she said, grabbing his arm. He spun around. "What are you going to tell them?"

He leaned forward so his eyes were level with hers. "What do you want me to tell them?"

The options swirled in her mind's eye. He would have to tell them about the car accident; there was no way around that. But if he also told them that he thought – knew – House had been driving, they would also need to answer questions about why he would want to hurt her in the first place. She wondered vaguely what had happened to their only evidence: the note and flower bouquet.

"Do you think we should tell them about the stalking?" she asked quietly.

"Yes," he replied without hesitation. "Allison, this situation has gotten out of hand. House needs to be locked up." He spoke so angrily, she was almost afraid to suggest they do anything different.

"Okay," she agreed. "You're right, we should tell them about everything."

"Right," he said, nodding. He leaned closer. "Don't worry. He can't hurt you in here. There are cops outside and he's not even allowed in the room." He pressed his lips to her forehead. "I'll talk to them first, but I'm sure they will want to talk to you, too. Just rest for now. I'll be back soon."

He flipped the light switch as he left, and the room fell dark at once, save for the sliver of light from the hallway that came from the open door. She laid back on the pillows as he left, shutting the door behind him, and plunging the room into darkness. The curtains in front of the glass windows had been drawn shut, so she could no longer see what was happening outside, and if Chase and the officers were right outside her door, they were not talking loud enough for her to hear them. Bored without any company, she closed her eyes and wondered if she could try falling asleep again.

"Don't get too comfortable."

Cameron's eyes snapped open and she bolted upward, looking around the dark room for the source of the noise. She fumbled for the light switch, but her fingers scraped only the wall. She kept moving her hand along the smooth plaster, and had just found the plastic switch when another hand clamped down on her own.

"I wouldn't flick that, if I were you."

The hand tightened on her right wrist, twisting it behind her back. She gave a strangled yell as the assailant wrapped his other arm around her chest, holding something with a sharp blade to her neck.

"Scream and I'll slit your throat," the deep voice said.

Cameron tried to shake him off, but the man tightened his grip. "How – how did you get in here?" she choked out.

"It's amazing how much you can't see in the dark," he answered cryptically. "I just stood in the shadows and waited for him to leave. Lucky those cops showed up. I was starting to worry I wouldn't get this opportunity."

She glanced at the door, willing it to burst open, hoping beyond hope that the police would finish questioning Chase and want to talk to her instead. The man seemed to be thinking along the same lines.

"Don't count on it," he said. "You'll be dead long before they get back in here. And as soon as they do…" He dug the blade a little deeper into her throat to make his point.

Pain shot through her and the world seemed to spin. It couldn't be possible; he couldn't have entered the room. He couldn't have been there all this time; they would have seen him. And he had been outside, she had seen Chase yelling at him earlier…

"House," she said, trying to ignore the pain in her neck, "why are you doing this?"

"Now, now, that's not my name," he chastised her. She felt him adjust his grip on her as he shifted his weight. "Damn sprained knee," he muttered. "Stupid brace doesn't work the way it used to."

"But," she spluttered. "But you were - House was - stalking me. He tried to run me over."

"Coincidence."

"House doesn't believe in coincidences," she said, in spite of herself.

"Which just furthers the argument that I'm not House, doesn't it?"

She strained against him, trying to twist her left arm to grab something, anything on the table next to her bed that she could use to defend herself. Cameron felt him dig his elbow into her shoulder. "Stop that or I'll drag this across your carotid artery."

"So you _are_ a doctor," she said, though she didn't lower her arm, or give up her attempt to reach the table. She made her movements smaller and more subtle, slowly inching closer and closer. It was difficult to move on the bed without making noise, though for the first time, she was thankful that the room was completely dark. "How else would you know about the carotid?"

"Yes, I'm a doctor," he answered impatiently. "We went on a date together once, don't you remember? I took you to a restaurant, and later we had some _high_ quality time in a park."

"What?" Scenes from the dream came flooding back. Fear filled her. They had been wrong about House as the stalker, and now the dream had more truth to it than they had imagined. "Why don't I remember this?" she asked, almost more afraid of the answer than of not knowing it.

"Because I spiked your drink with the date-rape drug," he replied simply. "It was fun."

Cameron tried to ignore the bile rising up in her throat. She instead focused her efforts even harder on moving her left arm up the table to grab something.

He pressed the tip of the knife to her skin. "If you so much as touch that drawer, I swear I won't hold back."

The drawer? She hadn't even considered what could be inside of the drawer; she had only been thinking about the table. Now that he said it, however, the drawer would have more useful items than the tabletop would. The drawer next to the bed was always filled with extra medical supplies. There weren't any scalpels, but there were syringes. If she could reach one of them, she could stab the assailant with it, not to make him bleed, but to induce an air embolism that would paralyze him at least, if not kill him altogether by traveling to his heart or lungs. But opening the drawer and pulling out a syringe would be the hardest part of all. And what if she missed him and stabbed herself by mistake?

She weighed her options. It would take her a few seconds at least to open the drawer and grab a syringe, during which he was sure to puncture her skin with his blade. He would probably reach the carotid before she could even get the needle to break his skin, and that was if she could still aim as she was losing blood. She knew she didn't have much of a chance of getting at his neck; the best she could do would be to stab him in the leg and wait for the embolism to travel to one of his vital organs. By that time, she would already be dead. Cameron swallowed hard. If she could twist in such a way that he would avoid dragging the blade of the knife all the way across her neck, she might still have the ability to scream. Or if she were really lucky, she would be able to incapacitate him enough to get away…and if she still had enough strength to reach the door, she would be able to find someone to help her. It was a risky option, but she didn't see what other choice she had.

Her mind set, Cameron jerked her left arm up and grabbed the handle of the drawer knob, yanking it open. Her movement had surprised the stalker, and he didn't have time to drag the knife very far or deep before she snatched up one of the needles and whirled around. The knife broke through her skin as she turned, and pain seared through her. Trying to push it from her mind, she concentrated on the syringe in her hand. She found the depressor and placed her thumb over it. She couldn't be sure where his leg was, or even any part of his body exactly, but she knew as long as she stabbed in front of her, she wouldn't be stabbing herself. She drove the needle into flesh and jammed the depressor down, hard. He cried out as the needle pierced his skin, but his grip on his own blade did not falter. Realizing what she had done, he grabbed her neck and forced her chin up. She immediately dropped the syringe and brought her hand up to defend herself, but he was too quick. He slid the blade across her throat and she could tell from the blood pouring from her neck that he had hit the carotid artery at last.

She fell back against the pillow in a pool of wet, sticky blood, fully aware that this was the end.

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**A/N:** Oooh, cliffhanger. What happened this time? Review and you shall find out!


	11. Lose Me

**Disclaimer:** Nothing is mine.

**A/N: **You reviewed, and now you shall receive! Thanks to everyone who submitted that happy button at the bottom of the page. This chapter gives a lot of answers; actually, it is possible to reconstruct the entire story based on everything you know up to this point. Scary thought, I know. Enjoy!

**A/N:** Melissa, thanks for all the love you showed this chapter. I appreciate it mucho. Brains!

* * *

This wasn't heaven.

A high-pitched mechanical shriek began emitting and suddenly the space above her was flooded with people. Gloves were snapped on and sleeves pushed back. A plastic mask was slipped onto her face, and she found herself shifting in and out of consciousness, hovering somewhere between light and dark, perhaps even the eternal kind. Was this purgatory?

But no, it couldn't be. Though she could no longer see anything but darkness, she could still hear voices. The voices shouted to each other, they shouted to no one, and sometimes they even shouted to her, or so it seemed. Something was being wheeled toward her; footsteps were scurrying out of the way to make room for whatever it was. Plastic scraped plastic and then she felt the sensation of something pressed on her chest. It moved, sliding along something too slippery to be her skin, until it touched whatever its operator was waiting for.

"There!" shouted a female voice that she vaguely recognized. "It's there. Embolism, in her right lung."

A new sound entered the fray: the distinctive _thunk! _sound of wood hitting title. Someone else was moving toward her, though this person's pace was much slower, much less frantic.

"Pulmonary embolism," he drawled, sounding almost bored by the words coming from his mouth. "That wasn't caused by the accident."

"Never mind what caused it!" snapped the first voice, as someone else yelled violently, "What the hell are you doing in here?"

Hell. The word stirred in her brain. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't see, and she couldn't comprehend what was happening to her. Pain seared in her chest, choking her from the inside out. Someone leaned close to her and said something, but their words were indiscernible; she had already lost the ability to hear properly.

The realization dawned on her. This could only be hell.

The pitch of the mechanical shriek increased in frequency and volume. "We need to get her to surgery immediately!"

"Wait!" said another voice.

"House, what are you doing?"

"I told you she sent those flowers to herself."

"What are you talking about?"

"Look at this."

"It's a syringe, so what?"

"It's been depressed, like air was forced through it. Air that might have entered one's bloodstream, causing a potentially fatal embolism, something every _other_ half-brained doctor would know."

"What are you saying?"

"House, we don't have time for this!"

"I'm _saying_ that she did this to herself."

Silence filled the room – and then a single shrill beep cut through the air.

"She's in v-fib! Paddles, let's go!"

A machine charged.

"Clear!"

_A man brushed past her as she hurried down the stairs to the E.R. The charts she had been carrying flew from her hands and scattered on the ground. She immediately dropped down to pick them up and was surprised to find him on the ground helping her._

"_I'm sorry," he said as he handed a stack of charts back to her. It sounded sincere, which surprised her; most people in this hospital weren't as friendly as the ones she had left behind. "I hope I didn't cause you too much trouble." He looked directly at her. She couldn't help but notice that he was rather good-looking._

"_No, no, it's fine," she answered, feeling her breath catch in her throat. He was smiling at her, which made him seem only more attractive. He had an easy-going nature about him that seemed to exude confidence. He straightened up first, and then offered his hand to her. She took it and allowed him to pull her to her feet._

"_George Harmon," he introduced himself, shaking her hand. "I work in radiology."_

"_Allison Cameron," she responded. "I just started in the E.R."_

"_Well, then, welcome!" Though he had stopped shaking her hand, he had not dropped it. Even when his pager went off a moment later, he grabbed it with only one hand. He looked at it and frowned. "I'm sorry, I have to go. 911 page, you know how it is." He released her hand at last. "I expect I'll be seeing you around, Allison." He gave her one last, lingering smile as he turned to go._

"No change, charge again!"

_She was standing in the shower, furiously scrubbing at her skin. Though it was already rubbed raw, she continued to drag the washcloth across it forcefully. No matter how much she washed, she could not get rid of the sensation that she was somehow dirty. As she moved the washcloth up and down her leg, she suddenly cried out in pain. The top of her right leg was covered in bruises. She glanced quickly at her left leg, which looked just as bad. She could not understand this. She had no memory of being hurt whatsoever._

_As she leaned over to wash further down her leg, she became more aware of the aching pain in her back, as though she had slept in an uncomfortable position for a long time. She moved one hand to the small of her back and straightened up slowly, uncurling her spine in an attempt to stretch it out. It felt a little better, but still stiff. She frowned._

_She stood in the shower for a long time, until the hot water had run out and she was standing under a spray of ice-cold liquid. She finally switched off the water and stood dripping on the bathmat. Wrapping a towel around herself, she began to dry her body with fervor, as though whatever lingering filth remained could be wiped away by terrycloth. Though she didn't realize it at the time, the tainted feeling that she felt would never truly leave her._

"It's been fifteen minutes."

"That's nothing, charge it again. Come on, clear!"

"_Allison!"_

_Halfway to her car, she whirled around to see who had called her name. She was filled with dread when she saw who was standing opposite her, ten feet away. Harmon was leaning on his car nonchalantly. It looked like he had been waiting for her._

"_You've been avoiding me." Though his tone was light, there was something undeniably sinister about it. "I haven't seen you since our first date."_

"_I…" She found herself at a loss for words. It was true: She had been avoiding him, though she couldn't bring herself to admit it. _

"_Didn't you like the flowers I sent?"_

"_Oh…um, yes, they were nice," she stammered. The note that had come with the bouquet was in her pocket. She had already memorized the three words that he had written:_ No hard feelings.

"_Just nice?" he asked. He took a step closer to her as she unconsciously took a few steps back. "You have to do better than that."_

"_I –I don't…" For some reason, she found herself utterly incapable of forming a coherent sentence. She could not understand her sudden inability to speak, or why she was filled with what was unmistakably fear._

_He was close enough to her now to touch her. He didn't, though, instead keeping his hands at his sides. His eyes raked the roots of her hair. "You should really get that re-dyed, you know."_

"Still no change, let's go again!"

"_Allison, are you coming? We're going to be late!"_

"_No, you go ahead!" she called from upstairs. "I can't find my wallet." She heard the door open and then slam shut. Her eyes searched the room swiftly; it was a mess. She finally found her wallet on the ground underneath a pile of shirts. She carefully grabbed a card from her dresser and stuffed it into her jacket pocket. _

_The bus was pulling up just as she reached the stop. She boarded hurriedly and found a seat by the window so she could see when to get off. After ten minutes, she spotted the familiar sign. When she entered, the shop was the same as she had always remembered it. Colorful displays lined the windows and walls; the shop prided itself on displaying the most varieties in Princeton._

_She selected one of the objects on display and brought it to the counter to pay. The cashier nodded approvingly. "This is a beautiful arrangement," she gushed. "Is it for someone special?"_

"_You could say that," she replied. _

"_Is there a note to go with it?"_

_She pulled the card out of her pocket and handed it to the cashier, who immediately found an envelope to seal it in. The cashier then set the envelope among the petals of the bouquet._

"_You're going to make someone really happy with this one, I promise you that."_

"Don't you think we should-"

"No, we're not calling it! She's not – she can't be-"

"Chase, it's been half an hour. Her brain can't take much more of this."

"Please, just try again. Try it one more time. _Please!_"

"Charging…Clear!"

_As soon as she saw the car approaching her, she knew what she had to do. She released the hand she was holding, though she was unaware of having done so. When the car came into view, she looked determinately into the eyes of the driver and then ran straight into the oncoming vehicle. There was a sensation of pain before everything she felt herself falling into the impending darkness._

"Time of death…"

_The needle hit her leg and she quickly depressed the syringe. The trapped air shot into her bloodstream. She felt herself losing consciousness and the syringe slipped from her hand. She fell back against the pillow as the embolism traveled to her lung. There was a high-pitched mechanical shriek. _

"…12:39 a.m."

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**A/N:** And...cue anger. Outrage? Confusion? Give me a review (pretty please) and tell me how you're feeling! Next chapter is the last one, and it will be an epilogue. It has already been written and beta'd - I just have to make changes based on Melissa's comments. I can guarantee the chapter will be posted sometime in the next week, though. Thanks!


	12. Epilogue: Follow Me

**Disclaimer:** Despite this being the last chapter, I still own nothing.

**A/N:** WOW - so many responses to last chapter! To those of you that didn't enjoy it, I'm sorry, but that's just the way things go sometimes. I appreciate all the anonymous reviews I received as well, even though I can't personally respond to all of them. This is the final chapter - enjoy!

**A/N:** Melissa, I have no words. I used too many in the first version of this chapter. =P

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He left the office in a state of mental and physical disarray. The physical disarray, he supposed, could not be blamed on the meeting; simple tasks like ironing and folding properly were ones with which he could not be bothered. This had been the case for three months now, ever since…well ever since the event that had triggered his now weekly meetings had happened.

The mental disarray was easier to understand. Relaying his emotions to a virtual stranger, especially as often as he was forced to do, was enough to wear on anyone's mind. It seemed that no matter how many times he visited the office, he could not escape the intense feelings of grief and guilt that constantly plagued him.

He'd now stopped going to work. He'd returned a mere week after the coffin had been laid to rest, much to the surprise and against the advice of his colleagues. Even his boss, for whom empathy was simply not in the dictionary, had insisted he had come back too soon. At first, the need to be doing something, _anything_, with his time had prevailed; being at work was better than wandering around an empty house. But as the weeks passed, he found himself withdrawing from his teammates, boss, and everyone else around him. He could not shake the memories that tormented him in his waking hours and transformed into nightmares as soon as he fell asleep. At their worst, they threatened to keep him in bed all day, as he relived the recollections over and over.

They called it depression, or at least, that's what the psychiatrist did. He'd been feeling hesitant toward the entire field of psychiatry as of late, not that he had ever been a fan to begin with. It had been one of his worst rotations during residency, a fact he now regretted. Perhaps if he had been paying a bit more attention, he would have caught what seemed to be obvious to everyone else – or at least, what seemed to have been obvious to his boss.

The psychiatrist's description of what happened was one he probably could have pieced together himself, had he been so disposed. The official diagnosis was paranoid schizophrenia, though he knew it was based on solely his descriptions – and a select few descriptions from others – about their experiences with the stalker. Her death had sparked, in addition to the outpour of sympathy, an extensive investigation into exactly what had gone wrong in that hospital room. The syringe that had been found on her bed had been taken as evidence; her fingerprints were later found on the depressor. They found the needle mark in her leg where she had injected herself with air, causing the embolism. The autopsy report guessed that it would have taken her between five and ten minutes to die.

He knew, of course, what he had been doing during those fateful minutes. He had been outside her room, talking to the police officers who were supposed to be keeping her safe. But from what? For the psychiatrist had an explanation for this behavior, too. While at first some hypothesized that she had purposefully committed suicide by injecting air into her bloodstream, the psychiatrist had come to a different conclusion. So had he. She was not suicidal; she never had been. He refused to believe she had injected herself on purpose, although he had trouble explaining to others how she could have done it accidentally.

The psychiatrist's hypothesis was plausible, at least: She had been hallucinating at the time and didn't realize what she was doing. Perhaps, the psychiatrist had said, she thought the stalker was in the room with her and he told her to stab herself. The psychiatrist had concluded resolutely that the stalker was imaginary, a manifestation of the schizophrenia. When he had tried to explain about the note and the dream, he found himself thwarted by his boss, who insisted he had found the receipt for a bouquet of flowers from the flower shop near the hospital. (How he had managed to get a hold of her wallet was unknown, though not, on the whole, relevant.) The psychiatrist was very interested in the receipt, as it seemed to confirm the diagnosis that she had been schizophrenic: the voices in her head had told her to send the bouquet to herself.

But he knew she had never said anything about hearing voices. She had seen the stalker, had dreamed about someone attacking her, had been threatened by a note – whether or not she wrote it to herself, he had pointed out, she was still hit by a car a mere thirty minutes after receiving the bouquet. The psychiatrist had sided with his boss; she had run in front of the car because the voices had told her to do so. This bolstered the position of those who argued she had committed suicide, though the psychiatrist was at least more sympathetic, claiming she had been unable to avoid the strength of her subconscious telling her that running into oncoming traffic was a good idea.

It was still unclear what had caused the psychotic break. The psychiatrist had insisted - most unhelpfully, in his opinion - that it had been caused by some sort of traumatic experience. When asked if she had mentioned any, he recalled the details of the memory-like dream, and although the psychiatrist had seemed interested at first, the ultimate conclusion was that the dream had been simply a dream – a bad one at that, but a dream nonetheless.

Unconvinced, he had scoured newspapers for evidence of a violent crime that had taken place near the hospital where she had been working. The closest he came was an article found two months after her death that reported a man by the name of George Harmon, who worked at the same hospital as she had, had been arrested for multiple counts of rape. According to the article, Harmon's trademark was the use of GHB, which would at least explain why she wouldn't remember the rape if it had happened. Though he had pointed this article out to the psychiatrist, without any evidence that it had occurred, no definitive conclusions could be drawn.

All in all, he was in a state of mental disarray as he drove down the empty streets of Princeton. He was on auto-pilot, his concentration severely lacking. He braked suddenly, realizing he was about to drive into oncoming traffic. He couldn't help but notice that a small part of him wished he hadn't managed to stop the car in time.

As he sat at the light and waited for it to change, he realized the direction in which he was headed. It was one that he followed regularly, though he never consciously decided to go. It was as if his car were attracted in this direction by some kind of magnetic pull, no matter how many times he swore the previous time would be the last.

Yet he could not bring himself to turn around. As he pulled the car into the small lot by the cemetery, he looked up at the darkening sky. He could tell it was going to rain. Though he had an umbrella in the trunk of his car, he opted not to retrieve it, instead setting off in the direction of her grave. He kept his hands in his pockets and his eyes averted. He did not need to look at the markings on the stones to know he was getting closer.

She lay on the edge of one of the rows near a patch of wildflowers. He hoped, anyway, that the wildflowers were still there. Each day grew colder and many of the surrounding plants looked neglected and dead. The wildflowers were the only source of color surrounding her gravestone, as he never brought flowers of his own. It wasn't that he didn't want to bring something to brighten the grave; it was simply that he never knew exactly when he was going to visit.

There it was, her name carved into the stone. It looked the same as it had the last time he had visited, the time before that, and the time before that. He noticed the wildflowers _were_ dying, a few already completely wilted. He did not speak. He had long ago decided that there was no point in speaking to an immobile stone. The psychiatrist disagreed, insisted that he needed to say good-bye, to gain a sense of closure so he could finally move on, but he felt closure would be hard to come by, regardless of how hard he tried.

There could be no closure until he forgave himself, and he knew that would not happen anytime soon. He had watched her fear for her life, terrified of a stalker that, as it turned out, did not even exist. He had been skeptical at the beginning; how could he have allowed her to change his mind? He should never have believed her. He should have called the police at the beginning. Even if it turned out that he was sending them after no one, even if they had realized no one was stalking her, the schizophrenia might have been discovered sooner, before she ever had the chance to hurt herself.

The knowledge that he should have figured it out himself, should have saved her, ensured he could never forgive himself.

He knew it was irrational. He never would have figured it out himself. He had always given her the benefit of the doubt. Even now, with all the evidence staring him straight in the face, a part of him still thought there was a chance that everyone was wrong. That someone – Harmon, or whoever else – had really been in her room that night, had stabbed her with the syringe and used gloves to make it look like she had stabbed herself. Or even, and he hated himself for even thinking it, that she had committed suicide, just to avoid the constant fear that she lived in that the stalker would kill her. Maybe she had wanted to kill herself first. He didn't want to believe it, because it forced him to admit that she committed suicide, but at the same time, it hurt to believe the stalker had been a hallucination the whole time.

The psychiatrist was no help. Constantly insisting that it was not his fault was not a cure for anything, particularly when he believed he could have done something to save her. He had forced the doctors to try to resuscitate her when they had found her, and that hadn't been enough. It wasn't about what happened after the embolism entered her lung; it was about everything that had happened before that. If he had refused to let her in that fateful night, or if he had refused to believe that she was right and that they shouldn't call the police, or if he had pressed her harder for the name of the so-called blind date, maybe he could have saved her. (He doubted she had ever gone on a blind date; the blind date was her brain's way of justifying why she could not remember a name she had tried so hard to repress.) If he had realized something was wrong when she thought her stalker was her former boss, if he had done _more_ than just be skeptical, if he had just _realized_ that something was wrong with her, maybe he wouldn't be standing here right now.

He stared at her headstone for a while, the depression and guilt threatening to consume him from the inside out. He did not speak, but simply stared and thought, and wondered. What if he had called the police? What if he had realized? What if he had never left her alone? What if, what if, what if.

It was a long time before he realized the wet drops on his skin were not there simply because he was crying.

It was raining.

He had no umbrella, no hood, nothing to prevent the relentless drops from soaking his hair as he stood. As it was, the rain was the least of his problems.

-END-

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**Author's Note:**

It feels strange to be writing another one of these end author notes so soon - writing 12 chapters in three months is probably the fastest I've written a complete story of this length. I think that's more indicative of how much free time I had during the summer, insetad of how easy this story was for me to write, because this story was, I think, one of the hardest ones I've done.

This story was a first for me in a lot of areas. The big first, of course, was Chameron. It's not a pairing I dislike, it's just not one I've usually written. And I have to say, despite what I said at the end of Under the Same Moon, I'm not sure how many more Chameron stories I can write. It's not a pairing that comes easily to me, I think because Chase is a character that doesn't come very easily. Maybe I will go back to Hameron after all. We'll see.

I know this story might have upset you, or felt confusing at times. I think this chapter clears it up, or at least provides a definite answer for Cameron's behavior throughout. Some people will dislike this answer, but all I can say is take it up with my muse because she's calling all the shots. If you are really confused, leave me a comment in a review, or send a PM, and I will provide an explanation.

This story was, above all else, an experiment. When I told Pandorama I wanted to write something provocative and different, this was the idea she came up with and I ran with it. I will admit it's not one of my favorite stories, but it is one that's important to me for its own reasons. I am satisfied with the ending I chose (which was not the original one I had planned), though I won't pretend I am glad to see this story finally be over.

That being said, thank you to everyone, and I mean, absolutely everyone, who reviewed even a single chapter of this story. Your reviews of encouragement and support meant more to me on this story than ever before. If I didn't have such strong support from the reader base, I probably would not have been able to finish this story. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I know some of you don't like it, but thank you anyway. Special shout-out to the reviewers whom I know are Hamerons - Ellie, Woody2792, Shootingstar7123 - for reading and reviewing this story anyway. And of course, to Pandorama, for putting up with yet another non-Huddy pairing story of mine.

What's next from me? I'm not really sure. I leave for school on Friday and my life will increase ten-fold in work load and stress level. I am going to try to keep writing, but I will change the way I post stories. Normally, I post a chapter as soon as I finish writing it. In this story, I didn't post a chapter until I had the following chapter(s) already written, to ensure I could handle the direction in which I was moving. From this point on, I will be finishing stories completely before posting anything. This will definitely increase the time between posted stories, but it will decrease the amount of time you have to wait between chapters, and will eliminate the possibility of me abandoning a story for an indefinite period of time. To keep you updated on my progress as I write, I will start posting on my author page, so check there for updates. If you want to be the first to know when I post a story, add me on author alert.

Thanks again to everyone that made this story possible - Melissa, Pandorama, my faithful readers and beloved reviewers - you are all amazing.

-holadios


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